46% making overpayment on mortgages

NEARLY half of home owners with a mortgage say they have been making overpayments on their home loan in recent months – potentially meaning they will be mortgage-free earlier than they had expected – a survey has found.

Young home owners are particularly likely to have been making overpayments, the survey of home owners from Which? Mortgage Advisers has found.

Paying off extra chunks of their mortgage could potentially help home owners to clear their debt earlier than they had originally planned – and some surveyed said they are chipping away at their mortgage debt in this way each month.

Some 46 per cent of home owners said they had made overpayments during the 12 months leading up to June 2018, including 69 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds and 52 per cent of home owners aged 25 to 34.

Of those surveyed, people in London (60%) and the West Midlands (52%) were the most likely to be making overpayments on their mortgages.

Poor interest rates from money sitting in savings accounts could be one factor driving the high levels of home owners using their cash to make mortgage overpayments, said researchers.